My current contemplation is how universal it is for all of us to want to feel good about ourselves and how we edit the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves to that end.
—Sally Estes
Covered in maggots, white and grey,
and tiny granules of poison. No one
wants to remember it this way. It doesn’t
matter if they were real or metaphorical.
The maggots did not wing into butterflies.
The poison was poison. You groveled
and cried. If we can’t be the hero,
we sometimes thrive on becoming
the narrator. It suits our pride. Say:
It happened in someone else’s staircase.
Say: I was younger then. Say: No, they
were ladybugs. Say: It was sand.
But you remember. They were white
and gray, the color of snow on the side
of the highway. Their bodies were soft.
And the poison, it pitted like small stones
into your knees, your bare knees.
Hmmm… could be this another chapter to, “How Are You?”?
I’m remembering the scene in Bull Durham, when Ken Costner’s character asks Susan Sarandon’s why everyone was somebody famous in their past lives, and never say, Josephine Shmoe. “Because it doesn’t work like that!” was the reply.
That said, I think there is another tendency to sell ourselves short in the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. Our failures loom larger, our idiocies more thundering.
To start, the title is surely a means to make me read it:>)
I’m curious about your choice of “you” instead of “I” in the poem. I’ve read it your way, then read it the I way. I like the you in the title, but the physical details of the maggot don’t ring so true to me when you try to include me with the you. They do, however, feel more visceral when I look into YOUR experience (meaning, the I). For instance, this lovely passage:
The maggots did not wing into butterflies.
The poison was poison. I groveled
and cried. If I can’t be the hero,
I sometimes thrive on becoming
the narrator. It suits my pride.
Here, in this poem, I think the personal is more powerful than the editorial voice.
You are great at calling me on this … Thanks David r